


04/04/1988

by GleesonGleeson



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-05
Updated: 2017-03-05
Packaged: 2018-09-28 11:32:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10098662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GleesonGleeson/pseuds/GleesonGleeson
Summary: After months of work, Bucky can now account for every day he spent as the Winter Soldier. Except for one: April 4th 1988Set after Civil War, but instead of going in the deep freeze, Bucky is living in a crappy apartment with Steve and Sam while he tries to piece his memory back together.  - finished work





	

'Man I had you,' wheezed Sam from the ground, 'I was... I was...'  
'You turned off my alarm clock Sam. It doesn't count as a win if I'm still unconscious.'  
'Stealth attack. Totally justified.'  
Laughing Steve pulled Sam to his feet and waited until his friend could breathe again.  
'Do you need me to carry you?'  
'Who do I look like? Just remind me not to challenge Captain America to any more races.'  
He was still pretending not to be limping when they reached the apartment building and Steve bundled him into the elevator before he attempted the stairs. Once they were in the door he sunk over the back of the sofa.  
Bucky had emerged from his room again and Sam threw him dark looks as he banged the buttons on the microwave. Steve kept an eye on him as he tossed Sam a bottle of water.  
'Need a hand there Buck?' he said lightly.  
Bucky grunted and jammed his finger harder. The machine blinked to life but he hit something else and it stopped again.  
'It's just this-' said Steve, taking a step towards him.  
Bucky punched a metal fist through the door and the microwave buckled. Then caught fire.  
'No, my!' started Sam, sitting upright.  
Steve put a hand up to quiet him.  
'Buck?'  
'You need a new microwave,' said Bucky flatly, handing Steve the crushed metal and storming off - the world's oldest teenager.  
Sam gave Steve a he's-banned-from-all-the-modern-appliances-again look.  
'I'll buy you another microwave.'

'Bucky?' said Steve knocking softly on the bedroom door. He could hear his friend banging and crashing around the room and he leaned in until his forehead touched the door.  
Buck... No one cares about the microwave. I don't even like the damn thing.'  
Steve rubbed his eyes, feeling the things he didn't say starting to rot inside him.  
'Bucky?' The room had gone quiet and Steve tried the door but an agitated James Buchanan Barnes burst out three inches from his face.  
Bucky stepped back and then slapped a notebook into Steve's chest. Steve turned it over, there was just a date scribbled onto the middle of the page: April 4th 1988. Steve looked up confused.  
'I think,' said Bucky, 'I think I did something really bad. On that date.' 

 

Steve could hear muffled thumps in the background of the phone.  
'Is this a bad time?'  
'No, no, what's up?' said Natasha. There was a small scream on the other end of line.  
'It's Bucky.'  
He waited for frustrated sigh that followed his name.  
'Ah ha?' said Natasha, cautiously.  
'He thinks he did something really bad in 1988.'  
'I hate to break it to him, but he probably did do something bad in 1988.'  
'Nat...'  
She sighed and someone on her end groaned.  
'What is it?' she asked.  
'He doesn't remember.'  
'Where?'  
'Doesn't remember that either.'  
An explosion went off in the background.  
'Everything alright there?' said Steve, who never liked listening to a fight he couldn't join.  
'Oh yeah, that was supposed to explode. Sort of.'  
'So 1988,' said Steve, rubbing his eyes again.  
'Sam said he smashed another microwave,' said Natasha.  
'It was an accident. Sort of...'  
Things went quiet on the other end of the line.  
'Natasha?'  
'Maybe the things he did for Hydra are better left unremembered.'  
Steve rubbed his eyes, how do you explain this to someone whose only seen Bucky after. He put the phone down from his ear and made sure he was alone before continuing 'It should be me, I should be the one not adjusting to the twenty first century, crapping out on microwaves. Bucky should be the one showing me how to live. You would have really liked him if met in 1942. I don't just owe him. He's my friend.'  
There was another pause and more screams in the background.  
'You don't let things go do you?' said Natasha.  
Steve smiled.  
She sighed exageratedly, 'Things are pretty quiet on the Hydra files we have for the end of the cold war, but I think I know someone who can help.'  
When she'd hung up he stared at the phone for a while. How do you explain when you don't fully understand yourself? If he told everyone the bare facts of their lives, it wouldn't explain what Bucky meant to him. Family, friend, they didn't cover it. There weren't words for it. He'd lost everything, his parents, Peggy, the future he was supposed to have. Most of all he'd lost the certainty he'd felt in nineteen forty three. And he knew, he hoped, he'd be able to give it up again if it meant doing the right thing. Even Peggy, as much as he'd loved her, because if it was the right thing and because he knew that's what she would want him to do. But Bucky?  
Sam appeared around the corner with the bent metal remains from that morning saying, 'You need to have another talk with your friend.  
Steve sighed, 'I told you, I'll buy you a new microwave.'  
'This is the toaster.' 

Sam slapped at Bucky's human arm but couldn't break out of the headlock. He managed a few savage elbows to the stomach but Bucky just jerked Sam backward.  
'Come on Buck,' said Steve, 'Sam called shotgun.'  
With a pained look at Steve, Bucky dropped the other man and Sam landed on the ground with a wheeze. Steve patted Bucky on the shoulder and Bucky, with a last growl at Sam, scrunched himself into the back of the VW.  
'You comfortable?' said Sam as the passanger seat clicked back another few inches.  
'Fine,' said Bucky, his knees touching his ears.  
Steve rolled his eyes as the car sparked to life. 

The address Nat gave them turned out to be a bar  
'You got to be kidding me,' said Bucky, craning around Sam to get the flashing neon sign that said 'Captain America's'.  
'Perfect,' said Sam, 'you should fit right in.'  
Pulling his baseball cap down low, Steve walked in to dozens of pictures of himself. Some old boys looked around to see who had come into their bar but they soon looked away uninterested. A bored looking East Asian teenager polished a glass with a dirty cloth.  
'Hey,' said Steve.  
The kid looked up and his eyes widened.  
'You're-'  
Some of the old men looked up from their beers.  
'Yeah kid, I was told to ask for Summer.'  
His mouth made a big O and he tapped his nose.  
'She's in the back, I can bring you...'  
'Nah we'll figure it out.'  
Steve could feel his eyes on them as they walked into a door at the back.  
'Xiao-Li, is that you?' said a woman's voice.  
'M'am? Summer?' said Steve cautiously.  
A pot lid dropped in the back room and Bucky reached into the back of his jeans for his gun, ignoring Steve's take-it-easy look. Bucky had just lowered his gun when a small Chinese woman wearing a house dress and slippers kicked him in the stomach. Bucky buckled. When she kicked again he put up his metal arm and it clanged against her leg. They both drew their guns on each other.  
'You!' they said unison.  
'Mom?' said a voice through the door, 'is everything alright?'  
'Yes,' said Steve, 'everything's fine. Isn't it.'  
Bucky's mouth twitched but with gritted teeth he nodded. The woman did the same, hiding it in behind her back before the boy walked into the room. All four of them smiled great big fake smiles at him.  
'Xiao-Li, why don't you get our guests some tea.' 

While the kettle boiled in the other room, the four of them stared at each other in silence. She caught Sam and Steve eyeing the metal in her leg and pulled her dressing gown tight.  
'My son knows nothing about this,' she said in a low voice with a look at Bucky, 'make sure it stays that way.'  
The boy reappeared with a tray of green tea, looking at Steve for so long that he nearly tripped over a table. A plate of carefully arranged american cookies sat with them.  
'Looks great,' said Sam earnestly.  
Thanks Xiao-Li,' said Steve with a smile.  
'Yes, thank you Xiao-Li, please go mind the bar now.,' said his mother.  
'But...'  
'I have business to discuss,' she said.  
He kept staring and actually bumped into the doorframe before he made it back out to the bar. The woman waited until her son was really gone before she rounded on them.  
'Where the hell is Natasha?'  
'She sent us,' started Steve.  
'I know and I will deal with that bitch later.'  
'We need your help.'  
She sipped her tea and looked at him. 'Everyone always does.'  
'April fourth, nineteen eighty eight.'  
The woman looked suspicious, 'What about it?'  
'I don't remember it,' said Bucky.  
'I'm sure there's a lot you don't remember Winter Soldier.'  
'Please,' said Bucky through a clenched jaw.  
She sighed and put the cup down onto the saucer. 'Do you remember me?'  
Bucky half shrugged, half twitched. 'Some.'  
'I was called the Summer Soldier.'  
She saw the look on Sam's face, 'I know, Hydra ran out of names. I mean anything that names itself Hydra in the first place... I was in China back then, in fact for much of the cold war. They had me keep an eye on both friends and enemies. But I was pulled out in eighty eight, because your boy here wasn't doing his job.'  
'What was the problem?' said Sam.  
'The memories wouldn't wipe like they were supposed to, mission reports became jumbled. He was asking questions. And in his sleep he kept talking about Steve. Steve, I'm sorry, Steve I didn't mean to, Steve come back...'  
Steve looked at Bucky who looked away.  
'And April eighty eight?' said Sam, giving them both a shrewd look.  
'I don't know exactly. But by May I was no longer needed and I got out the first chance I got. Ended up in this dump.'  
'In a Captain America bar?' said Sam.  
She spread her arms wide, 'who's going to look for me here?' 

After Summer kicked them out and Steve had signed everything Xiao-Li owned they sat in the VW in silence. Bucky crawled meekly into the back and Sam pulled his seat forward. With a look at Sam, who was pretending to be very interested in the throbbing neon sign over the bar, Steve said, 'Bucky?'  
'Don't,' said his friend, 'just don't.' 

Steve didn't sleep that night. When he saw the red numbers on the alarm clock hit three he gave up trying and pulled on his sneakers for a run. As he tiptoed out his bedroom door he saw flickering lights up the hall.  
Bucky was sitting in front of the tv in the dark. Steve crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. Bucky saw him and put down the carton of icecream.  
'You see this one?'  
It was an old Tom and Jerry cartoon. When he looked the cat ran into a saucepan and crumpled like an accordian.  
'Actually, I think I do remember it,' said Steve, taking a step closer.  
'I don't. I was bailing your skinny ass out of a fight about halfway through.  
'Oh yeah,' said Steve, sitting down on the edge of the couch and smiling hesitantly. Bucky had stopped mentioning things from before but sometime when they were laughing Steve was handed the carton of icecream.  
'Just don't make it look like too much is gone.'  
Steve put the carton down, 'So you are stealing Sam's food.'  
Bucky grinned, threw a plum in the air and took a bite without saying anything. Steve's breath caught in his throat because that grin was a time machine. Steve leaned back in the couch and scraped off a sliver of icecream, watching Bucky watch the TV.  
The other man caught him looking.  
'What?'  
There was a lump in Steve's throat. 'Just good to have you here.'  
Bucky put up a bare foot and shoved Steve on the knee, with a stop-the-sap look. And it gave Steve another flash of joy because it was a Bucky look, not a Winter Soldier one. He smiled himself and ate another conscientiously tiny spoonful. Tom was waiting outside the mousehole with cheese and a mallet when Bucky looked up.  
'You hear something?'  
Steve shook his head but stopped, listening hard. He could hear Sam snoring in the next room. He stood up and walked slowly towards the hall.  
'Steve...' said Bucky.  
There was a click in the dark and he felt a gun against his head. He put his hands up and Summer stepped out of the dark.  
'You idiots led them right to me.'  
She backed him into the room and aimed a shotgun at Bucky with her other arm. Steve felt ragged panic.  
'Summer....'  
'My goddamn name is Mei Mei.'  
Steve walked forward until his face was pressed into the handgun and she was looking at him, not his friend.  
'Of course. Mei Mei. What do you want?'  
She was about to say when Bucky kicked her off her feet. The gun went off, punching a hole in the ceiling and plaster rained down on them. A leg hammered into Steve's side and he heard something crack in his chest. Still not wanting to hurt her, he held off a vicious Bucky and absorbed more of her blows.  
'Please...' he said. She caught his arm and forced it so far back his shoulder crunched out of it's socket. Suddenly Bucky was in between him and Mei Mei fending off blows until he back handed her into the wall. With a scream of frustration, Summer brought a knee up into his stomach. Bucky aimed a punch that took a chunk out of the wall but she dropped to the ground and gave a brutal kick to the groin. She got another punch in and then she heard a click of her own.  
'Don't move,' said Sam.  
She put her hands up slowly and spat blood. 'They took my son.' 

With Mei Mei tied up and throwing murderous looks at everyone Steve slipped into his room and put his head against the wall with a groan. His fingers were starting to turn a funny colour. He was about to try and yank the joint back into it's socket when the bedroom door opened and Bucky walked in.  
'Natasha telephoned, she's on her way,' he said and looked at Steve's pained face, 'You alright?'  
'Dandy,' said Steve.  
Bucky crossed the room before he could protest, his human fingers gently probing along the joint which was swelling, pushing against his shirt. Unbuttoning the shirt, Bucky's fingers pushed under flannel and Steve breathed harder out his nose, staying very still and just watching.  
'You always did seem to like getting punched,' said Bucky.  
'Yup, could do it all--oof.' Bucky wrenched the arm up and the joint back where it belonged. Steve let out a long breath.  
'Thanks,' he wheezed, rolling his shoulder, Bucky's hand still on Steve's shoulder. It moved away and they both got a little shy.  
Next time, don't stand there and take punches, I could have helped,' said Bucky, 'you're not the only super soldier anymore.'  
'I know I didn't want you to kill her,' said Steve and realised at the same moment that he shouldn't have said it  
'I...' Bucky looked indignant. Then another flicker of something Steve didn't understand on his face.  
'Buck,' he said, putting a hand on the other man's shoulder.  
Bucky shook his head like he was trying to dislodge something unpleasant and Steve's chest tightened, his hand clasped harder.  
'Come back,' he said.  
Bucky looked at Steve for a moment like he didn't know who he was, his brow wrinkling and, with some of that ragged panic back in his chest, Steve leaned over and kissed him. It only lasted a second, just a chaste brush of lips and he pulled away. Bucky was back alright, it was him looking alarmed and Steve was afraid he'd broken something between them.  
'Steve, I...'  
But whatever he was going to say was cut off by Sam.  
'Natasha's got a lead on Xiao Li.' 

Natasha met them in a jet.  
'Shotgun!' shouted Sam as he unscrunched himself out of the back of the bug. Mei Mei dented the door with her leg as she crawled out muttering, 'you'd think Captain freaking America would have a better ride.'  
Bucky and Steve said nothing. Natasha swung out of the plane.  
'Summer, I'm so sorry...'  
Mei Mei aimed a punch at her but stopped half an inch from her face, 'if we don't find him, then you'll be very, very sorry.'  
Natasha nodded and made a yikes face at Steve when she'd gone. He managed a weak smile and her brow furrowed.  
Bucky was running ahead of Sam towards the jet but Sam pressed a button on his arm and the drone bot he'd named Redwing shot off his back and knocked Bucky to the ground.  
'I said shotgun,' he said and stepped delicately over Bucky.  
'Boys, boys, boys,' said Natasha, 'Steve, you're up front with me.'  
The other two grumbled into the bsck of the plane. 

'What's wrong,' said Natasha with real concern, 'we'll get the kid. I'm pretty sure I know the creeps that took him and they've been after him for a long time...'  
'It's not that, or well it is that. But...'  
'Oh,' she said, looking relieved, 'it's Bucky still isn't it.'  
Steve's shoulder shrugged up a quarter of an inch.  
'He still doesn't remember the 1988 thing?'  
'No. Summer - Mei Mei told us a little but...'  
Natasha wrinkled her brow at him again,'You're saying 'but' alot.'  
Steve held out his hands helplessly. Natasha stayed quiet for a while then said, 'you know there's something I've been meaning to say for a long time - and don't take this the wrong way - but in the modern world, sometimes two men can, much like a man and a woman come to feel something for one another...'  
'They didn't invent gay people in two thousand and five Natasha.'  
'Well then? Have you and him?' she jiggled her eyes back and forth between them. Bucky was staring gloomily out a window.  
He gave another quarter of an inch of a shrug and she gave a squawk and slapped him.  
'The jet Nat!' he roared as they did a small nosedive. She switched into autopilot and swivelled around in her chair.  
'When? How? Everything! Tell me!'  
'It's not like that,' said Steve, rapidly regretting saying anything, 'there was a little... back in our teens. We kissed a few times whenever we got drunk,' he said, seeing the look on her face. 'But that was all, we grew out of it. And this isn't to say that I felt anything less for Peggy.'  
'You can be both. I'm often both,' she said, leaning back with a grin, 'they didn't invent bisexuals in two thousand and five either.'  
He nodded and stared at his hands. He could see her mouth twitch into a little smile.  
'What?' he said, his face still a little red.  
'Nothing. Just Clint totally owes me fifty bucks.' 

'Woah,' said Sam as the jet dipped below the clouds for the first time since takeoff.  
'You think Xiao-Li is here?' said Meimei looking dubiously at the smoking volcano.  
'We've been after this guy for a while, he fancies himself as a bond villain in training, another Hydra run off. I wouldn't be surprised if he was in there stroking a white cat.'  
Steve and Bucky looked nonplussed.  
'You know like in the James Bond movie... You watched Saw but you didn't watch James Bond?'  
'Dudes that's just sad,' said Sam.  
Bucky gave Steve a private little eyeroll while they the jet swung down onto the side of a real live smoking volcano.  
'Down here,' said Natasha, swinging up the lid of a bunker. Meimei jumped first, hitting the floor with a thud and a clank.  
'Why don't villains ever have their lairs on a nice beach,' muttered Sam as he climbed in, 'some nice resort, with a Starbucks.'  
Steve found himself reaching for a shield that wasn't there as they made their way down. Bucky seemed agitated down here, his metal fist kept clenching and Steve had to stop himself from reaching out to reassure him.  
The ceiling started to slope up again and with hand motions Steve ordered them to fan out. The room, however, was empty.  
'What is this?' said Meimei, searching frantically around the ruins. There were computers hastily pulled out of the wall, trailing wires. Electricity crackled from some of them.  
'He was here, we knew he was here' said Natasha, picking up a wire.  
Meimei looked murderous and Steve got ready to intervene but Sam spoke up first, 'over here.'  
There was a man on the ground, half dead, a drop of blood at the edge of his mouth.  
'Vasily,' cried Natasha.  
'He's gone,' said Vasily thickly.  
A screen switched to life on the wall.  
'Ah, Captain America,' said a tinny voice, 'I'm sorry I couldn't stay.'  
The camera panned out and there was Xiao-Li, lying in a chair. Meimei stepped forward, a little cry of anguish in her throat.  
'I press a button and soon you're waist deep in lava, then we can see just how super human you all are.'  
'Or, I let you all walk free and hand over the boy.'  
'Uh, that one,' said Sam.  
'All I want is my Winter Soldier back,' he said.  
Everyone turned to look at Bucky, except for Steve who kept his eyes on the man on the screen.  
'Sure, no problem,' said Meimei loudly.  
'No,' said Steve.  
'Steve...' said Bucky.  
'If there's one thing I've learned, it's that no one in a bunker like this keeps their promises.  
'Okay,' said the man and the screen popped off  
'So...' said Sam, looking around, 'what does...'  
Lava started to pour in through pipes.  
Natasha put her hands out at Steve.  
'Honestly, I thought there would be more of a negotiation..' admitted Steve.  
'Move,' said Sam as the room got a lot more warm. Natasha and Steve picked up a groaning Vasily.  
'Go,' yelled Steve as Natasha stopped to pick up some of the electronics.  
They were racing back up the corridor. Sam let out a cry as he had to leap over a puddle of molten lava, it was coming in a pipe and starting to eat into the concrete. Natasha was coughing badly and trying to hide it, while Steve made sure that she kept just ahead of him.  
'Nat...' he said and she put on another burst of speed. The corridor was getting unbearably hot. There was a whirr ahead of them after what felt like an age and they watched Sam as he zipped out of the bunker. With a step back, Meimei bounded up herself.  
Bucky reached up and clamped on to the edge of the bunker, offering a hand backwards to Natasha. She shook her head and waited for Vasily to be passed up. The man groaned, hunching against his side where blood spread from a wound they couldn't see. Between the three of them they passed him out, but another pipe opened and vomitted out lava, missing Natasha by a quarter of an inch. Bucky dropped down and plugged the whole with his metal hand.  
'Move!' he said and Steve vaulted Natasha up towards the light. Hands appeared and she was lifted to safety. Sam's arm reached down.  
'Come on!'  
Bucky jerked his head up and Steve reluctantly allowed himself to be pulled up. The second he was safe, he turned to Bucky. For a second Bucky looked like he might stay down there, the haunted look on his face was back. But he shook his head and put his human hand out for Steve to pull him up. 

It was a much more sullen group that got back to the apartment. Bucky and Sam had gotten meekly into the back of the plane. Mei mei paced about the place, muttering under her breath while Natasha bit her lip.  
'Where are we going to go next?' said Steve.  
'I don't have anything. It could take weeks to get another lead like that.'  
'Weeks?' screeched Mei mei, and stomped so hard that something in the floor cracked. She advanced murderously on Natasha but Nat just looked tired and rubbed at her temples.  
'There's another way,' said a voice from the door. Bucky stood there holding one of his diaries.  
'No,' said Steve.  
'You haven't heard what my idea is.'  
'Whatever it is, no,' said Steve, looking only at Bucky now.  
'Can it get my son back?'  
'I think I remember the room he was held in.'  
'Well, let's go!' said Meimei, jumping towards the door.  
'I don't remember remember. I need help. How's your Russian?' 

'Can you get out of that?' said Sam, testing Bucky's handcuffs. Bucky gave a great tug and though there was an audible creak from the wall hook it held.  
Steve, checking the other hook said, 'are you sure?'  
Bucky breathed a little shakily and nodded. Steve let his hand rest on Bucky's for a second. He tried to say something, but whatever it was stayed lodged somewhere in his stomach. Instead he gulped.  
'I'll be here, okay?'  
Bucky looked at him and flashed a brief smile through clenched teeth.  
'Okay?' said Natasha, holding the book in front of her like she was going to start a seance. Everyone else stood in a semi-circle, tensed for a riot. The couch was pulled out of the way and Sam had covered it carefully in plastic.  
Natasha cleared her throat, 'Longing.'  
Bucky closed his eyes and leaned back against the wall.  
'Rusted. Seventeen.'  
Closing his own eyes, Steve took a moment to look less than confident. He pushed away what they were doing and looked back at Bucky. Hopefully not a last look.  
'Daybreak. Furnace. Nine. Benign.'  
Bucky's whole body writhed and he knocked his head into the wall a few times.  
'Homecoming.'  
He laughed a little and looked at the ceiling.  
'One. Frieght car,' finished Natasha and Bucky was gone. Dead eyed, the Winter Soldier stared through them, not at them and said something in Russian.  
'What's the date again?' said Natasha.  
'April 4th 1988.'  
She spoke to him, but he just grunted and stared at her.  
'What's going on?' said Meimei, 'ask him!'  
'I have,' said Natasha, looking at the page.  
The Winter Soldier writhed against the wall and Meimei grabbed the page and asked herself.  
'Bucky?' said Steve, leaning in concerned.  
He sagged a little against the cuffs and started to speak.  
'What's he saying?' said Steve.  
'Ah,' said Natasha and started translating, 'I left the base at six fifteen and went to the target's location. There was minimal resistence, target was not expecting me. I terminated the target at 6:45.'  
'Who was it?' said Steve, 'ask him who the target was.'  
Natasha translated.  
'Steve Rogers,' said Bucky, 'ya ubil Steve Rogers.'  
'Steve Rogers, I killed Steve Rogers,' said Natasha and everyone turned their heads towards Steve.  
With a ripple of muscles and metal on metal, Bucky ripped at the hook holding him to the wall. Natasha spoke to him in again but he ignored her and soon the handcuff and half the wall off, raining down plaster. Meimei launched herself at him but he swung a fist that sent her flying into the wall.  
'Not my wallpaper,' said Sam, sending redwing against Bucky. A metal arm swung out and crushed the bot against the wall.  
'Not red wing!' said Sam.  
Steve dodged two punches and hugged Bucky back into the wall.  
'Bucky! Stop, it's me, it's Steve. You didn't kill me.'  
The other man slammed him back into the wall repeatedly and wrapped the metal of his fingers around Steve's throat. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the others trying to drag Bucky off him, blows coming from everywhere. They were going to hurt him.  
'It's me,' he choked, 'Steve.'  
Something twitched in Bucky's eyes, like a computer glitch. Remember, thought Steve desperately as his vision started to pop with little stars. And he did, or seemed to, his face twisted and Steve found himself able to breath again. With a hacking cough he slid a little down the wall. Natasha was sent flying into him and Steve caught her before she crumpled. Sam was groaning on the floor while Meimei matched him blow for blow. Bucky no longer seemed so interested in the fight however and as soon as he could twist away from her he launched himself through the window and into the street.  
'Bucky!' croaked Steve, running to the window. He was halfway out before he felt a hand on his shoulder.  
'Don't,' said Natasha, breathless and tentatively touching a split lip.  
'I have to go after him, it took us four years to find him last time' he said, cradling a rib of his own.  
'No. I. Have. A tracker on him,' she said, holding out her phone where a moving dot flashed. 

It was obvious as they followed him why Bucky had managed to stay below the radar for so long, he didn't stop moving for two days.  
'You need to sleep,' said Sam with a yawn as he appeared out of the back of the moving jet.  
'Hmm,' said Steve without taking his eyes off the bleeping target.  
'I said, sleep.'  
'I"m fine.'  
'Well you look like crap.'  
Steve smiled faintly and shuffled sore ribs.  
'I promise, I won't move from this chair,' Sam said more softly and ripped off a salute.  
Nodding, Steve walked to the back. Natasha was dosing in a chair but jumped as he went past.  
'We ready?' she said sitting up and wiping the drool off her chin.  
'Shush, back to sleep,' he said and she settled back into the chair and pulled her baseball cap down over her eyes. Steve walked past her and lay out long in a chair, strapping himself in and closing his eyes. Sleep didn't arrive, instead he spent maybe an hour thinking of all the ways that Bucky could die. A little jolt of pain went through him every time he saw the body and he felt a great sucking loneliness that his work as Captain America had only ever patched over. He loved people here but...  
He shuffled over and saw that Meimei wasn't sleeping either.  
'We'll get him,' he said as much to himself as to her.  
She just snorted in disbelief. After a pause Steve asked, 'how did you do it?'  
'What,' she said flatly.  
'Come back from being the Summer soldier.'  
She was quiet for so long that Steve thought she wasn't going to answer.  
'I gave in easier than your friend, shut myself down so all they saw was the good solider and not the bits of myself I'd tucked away from them. Your Winter Soldier was more... American about it. They couldn't get what they wanted unless they broke him totally,' she said, rubbing her steel leg.  
Steve nodded and pinched the bridge of his nose.  
'Still, Captain America. They took more than my leg. And now Xiao-Li...' her voice croaked.  
'We'll find him,' he said.  
'But in what state,' she said, looking away again. 

 

Steve must have fallen asleep at some point because Sam was shaking him awake. Blinking hard, he jerked awake, fearing the worst.  
'We're here,' was all that Sam said. Meimei was already strapping guns onto herself. As he left the plane, he saw the blinking red dot, in the one position for the first time since they'd tried to catch him. The cold hit him in the face when he stepped down. Sam had his hands tucked in under his armpits.  
'Where are we,' he said as he jumped on the spot.  
'Lapland,' said Natasha, looking more at home in the cold.  
'Like Santa Claus Lapland?'  
'I doubt it.'  
'How did Bucky get here?' said Steve.  
Natasha just pointed to a crumpled helicopter.  
'Didn't do the best job of landing it, but it explains why he was moving so fast.'  
All Steve could think was, how did he think he was going to get back again.  
'Alright boys. And Mei mei,' added Natasha when the Summer Soldier scowled at her, 'we know this was a backup Hydra base that didn't show up even on the leaked information, so I have nothing to go on here. The last one of these was a weapons dump, all kinds of... Steve, what are you doing?'  
Steve was already halfway down the open hatch.  
'I'm going in.'  
Meimei forewent the ladder and just jumped into the hole.  
'Ugh, wait up,' said Natasha, rolling her eyes.  
Meimei had so many guns strapped to herself that she rattled as she walked, while Sam's bot flew ahead of them, scouting the way. It was colder below ground, empty concrete halls that seemed to be the decor of choice in illegal Soviet bunkers. The team's breath clouded around them.  
'Stop,' said Sam, 'something up ahead.' He looked strained.  
'What is it?' hissed Meimei.  
Sam just shook his head and with a grunt of frustration, Meimei ran ahead of them. Even she gasped when she rounded the corner. There were splashes, great arcs of blood across the wall. They walked in, guns at the ready but there was only bodies. Steve's throat threatened to close.  
There was a flicker of light and a murmur in the next room and he shared a flicker of eye contact with Meimei, both their futures were in the next room.  
'Stay together,' hissed Natasha. You could hear a tinny voice echoing through the other room and Steve blanched. Someone on a tv was muttering his name.  
They walked through the door, Natasha and Sam scanning the room, but no one could move, or would ever move again. Steve's arms dropped to his side as he saw three screens, the size of football scoreboards, with three different scenes on them.  
One had Bucky hooked up to a machine and he was just screaming, his body contorted as they pumped his with something. On another he was curled up, muttering Steve's own name, over and over and over. He turned to the last one, reluctantly when there was a yelp behind him.  
'Xiao Li!' yelled Meimei as her son hurtled into her arms. She swept him off his feet into a bear hug and squished him so close to her that she knocked his baseball cap off.  
'Xiao-Li,' she said and then pulled him back away from her, 'don't you ever do that to me again you hear!' She pulled him back into a bear hug.  
'Mom!'he complained in a muffled voice.  
'Where's Bucky?' said Steve, not able to wait any more.  
'Did he do anything to you?' said Meimei squeezing her sons face and scrutinising it.  
'No Ma, he saved me.'  
'Steve,' said Sam and jerked his head. Bucky was sitting with his back to the screens, crouched behind a desk, with his hands rubbing the sides of his head.  
'Can we stop the noise?' roared Steve over the din and Sam went to the control desk, hurriedly checking all of the panels. Before he figured it out, Natasha had taken aim and fired at the speaker. It crackled after the shot but the screaming died.  
'What?' she said as everyone turned to her.  
'Buck,' said Steve very softly. The other man didn't respond at all, just looked into space.  
'Bucky...' said Steve, slowly putting his weapons on the floor and approaching him gently, like a horse that might spook, 'it's over, it's all over.'  
'You should watch this Steve,' said Sam but Steve didn't look away from Bucky, who seemed to flicker in and out of himself.  
'You should watch it,' said Bucky gruffly and with irritation Steve looked up to see... himself. There was no sound, just three silent movies, Bucky was on two screens and on the third - was himself. Or at least a man that looked a lot like a young Steve Rogers. For a couple of seconds Steve wondered if it really was him, but then he realised that stamp on the screen read 04/04/88 and the room this kid was foreign to him. There was a digital clock, a plastic coffee machine and whatever he was wearing belonged to the eighties, not the forties. Not-Steve turned at a noise behind him and dropped the mug in his hand. It silently smashed as he backed away and Bucky prowled into the shot. No, not Bucky, thought Steve, the Winter Soldier. There was a moment, almost of hesitation from Bucky, he paused and shook his head, but Not-Steve opened a drawer and drew out a knife, waving it towards the stalled Bucky. With an amateur lunge, he thrust the knife at Bucky and tried to make a run for it. But, with his metal arm, Bucky caught the kid by the neck and Steve flinched as he squashed the life out of the boy. When he looked again not-Steve was crumpled on the ground for a moment, then the video flickered back to the start and the same not-Steve was there, just making a cup of coffee.  
Steve looked at real Bucky, who turned away his face away.  
'Bucky it wasn't me in that video.'  
'Yeah, but it was somebody. It was hundreds of somebodies.'  
Gently, Steve lowered himself to the ground again, only an arm's length between them.  
'That wasn't you either. You're James Buchanan Barnes, you let me sleep on your floor, you made sure I had enough to eat, you hauled my ass out of how many fights...'  
'No... No, whatever man you knew once died falling off a train. I'm not him. Look at that! Look!'  
I see. I see a man who fought so hard they had to fry your brain and convince you that you'd killed me to get what they wanted.'  
Bucky was squirming and Steve inched forward.  
'I see the man who pulled me out of the water when he barely knew who he was, let alone me. And the Bucky who tried to build a normal life and piece everything back together.'  
'I know you're a good guy Steve and I was your friend once but please, just put an end to it.'  
He tried to hand Steve a gun. Steve took it and broke it in two and they both sat there looking at it for a long moment.  
'I know you want to think the best of everybody,' started Bucky more softly, 'I know you want to save everyone...'  
'You think that's it?' said Steve, 'You think I brought down SHIELD, broke up the Avengers and gave up on being Captain America because I'm a good guy? Bullshit! I love you, I did it because I love you. I know everything you did and I still love you.'  
'I'm sorry Steve,' said Bucky, his voice cracked, 'I don't come back from here. I tried. They took all the good parts out.' As he spoke his face twitched, the Winter Soldier trying to fight his way back up.  
Steve reached a hand out and pulled Bucky's head towards him until their foreheads touched. Bucky's metal hand reached up, his fingers curling around Steve's arm, not pulling him closer but not pushing him away either.  
'I killed people.'  
'I know.'  
'I'm not safe. My head's not safe.'  
'I know.'  
They sat, clinging to one another. Bucky closed his eyes and moved a fraction.  
'What if I...'  
Desperately, Steve kissed him, but Bucky held himself back, reluctantly it seemed.  
'We're not sixteen any more,' whispered Bucky.  
'Yeah and it's not nineteen forty any more either.'  
'What, like we can get married?' said Bucky with a choked laugh, 'that'd be a headline.'  
Steve's fingers wound around the back of Bucky's shirt, pulling him closer and it was Bucky the second time who sought out Steve's lips. Nothing else in the room was important after that as they moved closer together, a desperate closeness. It felt like something broken in Steve had been pieced back together. Bucky's hand reached up and cupped his cheek and he rubbed his face against it, his own fingers wrapping around Bucky's head and drawing him against him in turn.  
A polite little cough behind him brought him to his senses and he stopped, reluctantly coming back to his sense. Bucky was even more reluctant and there was a moment of panic in his eyes when they stopped. Gently, Steve pressed a kiss onto his cheek.  
They got to their feet, lightly avoiding anyone's eyes. Behind Bucky's back, Natasha reached a hand out and he handed her what looked like fifty bucks. She gave him a quick thumbs up and a smile, Sam a bemused nod. Meimei had her hand over Xiao-Li's eyes.  
On the screen not-Steve-Rogers dropped his cup of coffee again, fear all over his face. But the real Steve Rogers slipped his fingers into Bucky's human hand and gave a squeeze and Bucky squeezed back.  
'Let's go home.'


End file.
